Aromas of roses and sweet plums with strawberry. Full body, with super fine tannins and beautiful fruit. Silky and fine with such beauty. This is insane with a rust and iron character. Fascinating. Drink or hold. Top Ten Wines of 2013.
(12/2012)

91-93 points
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

A tank sample due to be bottled within two weeks of my tasting, the 2010 Angel Flower Pinot Noir offers alluring ripe cherry and mulberry aromas over baking spices, lilacs and a touch of honeysuckle. Medium bodied with a medium level of fine-grained tannins, it has medium-high acid and long finish. Mike and Claudia Weersing continue to work nature’s magic on their wines. The results are truly unique wines that can only come from these creative hands working out of this pretty patch just inland from the Waipara. Even more exciting is that the quality straight across the estate and growers labels just gets better and more consistent each year from this relatively new operation.
(10/2011)

91 points
Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar

Medium red. Rather stunted on the nose today, showing a peppery nuance but little in the way of fruit. Then concentrated, tactile and energetic on the palate, with rich, complex flavors of raspberry, black plum and black pepper lifted by a mineral component. This dense, fine-grained pinot communicates a strong impression of dry extract. Finishes with broad, fine tannins and excellent length
(9/2012)

Wine Enthusiast

Peppery, beefy and enticing, this wild and wooly Pinot layers those savory notes over a core of tart cranberry and cherry-pie fruit.
(10/2013)

Wine Spectator

The hearty cranberry, cherry and raspberry notes have an appealingly tart edge, with spice and toasted cedar notes firming up on the finish. Drink now through 2022. (Web-2013)

K&L Notes

"If New Zealand has created a finer Pinot Noir than these two single-vineyard wines from Pyramid Valley Vineyards, I haven't tasted it." writes Matt Cramer of the Wine Spectator. From the winery: "Only 180 cases made. Good deep ruby. Flowers, red fruits, and bags of spice on the forward bouquet. Lush but crisp, with very fresh fruit, and all that spice. Very long and elegant palate."

Product Reviews:

An enchanting wine, very floral nose of dried rose petals and lavender. Bright high-toned red fruits on the nose lead to slightly richer sappier dark red fruits on the palate. This wine has compelling energy and vibrancy. Crisp acidity and grainy tannins mean this wine will hold in the cellar. This is definitely more a Burgundy drinker’s wine that a modern fruit forward style. The wine has great texture and authentic sense of place. This is a very interesting bottle that deserves some reflection and consideration if it is to be fully appreciated.

The Angel Flower is an even smaller production from the PVV home blocks with 180 cases made and cropped at 1.1 tons to the acre. Compared to the Earth Smoke, the wine is more lacy and ethereal. The nose shows some damp earth, lavender, thyme, plum, raspberry and spice. On the palate with time, the wine becomes more and more complex and layered in the mid-palate and in its finish. Lovely.

Additional Information:

Varietal:

Pinot Noir

- One of France's most legendary grapes and the grape that earned Burgundy its reputation. The parent of varietals like Pinot Gris/Grigio and Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir is blue to violet to indigo in color with relatively thin skins, and it is said to have been cultivated in France for more than 2,000 years. At its best, Pinot Noir creates elegant wines that are filled with primary red fruit aromas and flavors while young, revealing with an array of secondary characteristics like earth, smoke, violet, truffle and game with age. The varietal is also known, perhaps better than any, for its ability to translate terroir, or a sense of place. While the best Pinot Noir still comes from Burgundy, it is being produced with increasing success in cooler climates around the world. In France, it is part of the trifecta of grapes that can go into Champagne, and it is also grown in Alsace, Irancy, Jura, Savoie, Lorraine and Sancerre. Outside of France it is produced under the names Pinot Nero and Blauburgunder in Italy's mountainous regions, as Spätburgunder in Germany and as Blauburgunder in Austria. In the US, Pinot Noir has found suitable growing conditions in the cooler parts of California, including Carneros, the Russian River Valley, the Anderson Valley, the Sonoma Coast, Monterey County, the Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Barbara County, as well as in Oregon's Willamette Valley. In recent years, New Zealand has demonstrated its ability to interpret this hard-to-grow varietal, with successful bottlings coming from careful and attentive growers in Central Otago, Martinborough and Canterbury. Chile is also an up-and-coming region for Pinot Noir, creating fresh, fruit-forward, early-drinking and affordable Pinots from the coastal Casablanca Valley and the Limari Valley.

Country:

New Zealand

- New Zealand is an extremely diverse wine-growing nation. The long history of producing wine started in the 1830s with wineries such as Mission Estate (1850) and Te Mata Estate (1896) still producing wine today. The two islands hold a multitude of different growing climates ranging from warmer areas such as Hawke’s Bay to very cool regions such as Waitaki, and Awatere. Most regions are defined as Maritime with the exception being Central Otago that has a moderate Continental climate with the high elevation creating dramatic diurnal swings in temperature. The plethora of grapes grown in New Zealand reflects this diverse microclimate make up. Everything has a place here, Bordeaux varietals and Syrah in Hawke’s Bay, Chardonnay and Pinot in Nelson, Pinot Noir and Riesling in Central Otago , aromatic whites in Waipara and pretty much everything you can imagine in Marlborough. New Zealand is also one of the “greenest” wine producing nations on earth (94% of wine certified sustainable in 2013) with a strong focus on organic and Biodynamic farming.